History
Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economy measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service gets hundreds of book weekly and reviews about 100.
Initially titled the Bulletin, the title was changed to Bulletin from Virginia Kirkus' Service with the January 1, 1955, issue and successively shortened to Virginia Kirkus' Service with the December 15, 1964, issue and Kirkus Service in 1967 before attaining its definitive title of Kirkus Reviews with the January 1, 1969, issue. During the period April 15, 1985-July 15, 1991, it was known as Jim Kobak's Kirkus Reviews.
Kirkus was published by Kirkus' (Virginia) Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, Virginia Kirkus' Service from 1955 to 1966, and Kirkus Service starting in 1967. It was sold to The New York Review of Books in 1970. It was later sold by the Review to Barbara Bader and Josh Rubins. In 1985, magazine consultant James B. Kobak acquired Kirkus Reviews.
David LeBreton bought Kirkus from Kobak in 1993. BPI Communications, owned by Dutch publisher VNU, bought Kirkus from LeBreton in 1999. VNU was renamed the Nielsen Company in 2006. At the end of 2009, the company announced the end of operations for Kirkus. The journal was purchased from the Nielsen Company on February 10, 2010 by businessman Herbert Simon. Terms were not disclosed. Since then it has been operated by Kirkus Media which has retail operations throughout the English-speaking world. Kirkus Media is led by Marc Winkelman, a book-industry veteran who is CEO of Calendar Holdings.
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